Welcome to a special all Dark Souls
edition of the mailbag. I hope you all enjoyed Mr. Trent
Seely filling in last time. I thought he did a fantastic
job! Especially considering he actually tackled my insane
challenge. Anyway, Dark Souls II drops at midnight
tonight so let's talk about the first game, and of course
a little about its predecessor Demon's Souls. You
can check out my original review for Dark Souls
right here if you're interested. Also if the Souls
games aren't your cup of tea, will be back with some Final
Fantasy, Tales, and perhaps South Park talk
on Friday.

I'm celebrating by
grabbing the game at a midnight release! Then
I'll be jumping right into my playthrough as
quickly as possible. I'm hoping the game is
worth all the excitement, as with a new director
I won't deny I'm worried. Going through New Game
plus for third time, I continue to be impressed
by how fantastic Dark Souls is. So yeah,
I guess I'll be spending my last pre-Dark
Souls II time getting destroyed in NG+++!

Drinking The Haterade

@AskWheels Why is Dark Souls so awful? #realquestion
Saying "it isn't" is not an acceptable answer

@falselogic

Wheels' Comment

Well that's odd,
because "Dark Souls" is awful with no
arguments isn't acceptable either. I could just
end it there but I'll humor you for a moment. Dark
Souls is a magnificent game. We can start
with the classic Metroidvania style design, with
a large interconnected game world that the
player is largely left to figure out on their
own. This combined with the multiplayer ideas
taken from its predecessor create a game that
mixes both new and old ideas into a fantastic
package. The solid combat helps of course.
There's a great weight to attacks, a wide
variety of weapons and magic, and of course the
stamina system to create tension in battle. Save
for the Bed of Chaos, the bosses are enjoyable
and not unfair by any stretch. There's some
occasional bugs and AI issues, but on the whole
none of the problems hold the game back. I think
it's just not your cup of tea?

OK Mr. Aladdin den
Ouden. This seems like it will be our eternal
argument (more than Tales of Grace f vs.
Tales of Xillia). Part of this boils down
to differing tastes for sure. Still, I've seen
far too many people ignore the plethora of
issues in Demon's Souls. I've also seen
plenty point to Bed of Chaos while completely
ignoring the multiple lame bosses in their Souls
of choice. I really think it's hard to argue
that Dark Souls isn't the sounder game
mechanically. You may prefer the hub based world
design, and the levels that feel almost like a
survival horror at times, but those things do
not make Demon's Souls better. Also this
is for you:

Madness Mr. Sword Saga, I am ready to DOMINATE Dark
Souls II.

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